The child was named Nilmani. When he was two years old his father
fell seriously ill. A letter reached Joygopal asking him to come as
quickly as possible. When after much trouble he got leave and arrived,
Kaliprasanna's last hour had come.
Before he died Kaliprasanna entrusted Joygopal with the charge of his
son, and left a quarter of his estate to his daughter.
So Joygopal gave up his appointment, and came home to look after his
property.
After a long time husband and wife met again. When a material body
breaks it may be put together again. But when two human beings are
divided, after a long separation, they never re-unite at the same
place, and to the same time; for the mind is a living thing, and moment
by moment it grows and changes.
In Sasi reunion stirred a new emotion. The numbness of age-long habit
in their old marriage was entirely removed by the longing born of
separation, and she seemed to win her husband much more closely than
before. Had she not vowed in her mind that whatever days might come,
and how long soever they might be, she would never let the brightness
of this glowing love for her husband be dimmed.
Of this reunion, however, Joygopal felt differently. When they were
constantly together before he had been bound to his wife by his
interests and idiosyncrasies. His wife was then a living truth in his
life, and there would have been a great rent in the web of his daily
habit if she were left out. Consequently Joygopal found himself in
deep waters at first when he went abroad. But in time this breach in
habit was patched up by a new habit.
And this was not all. Formerly his days went by in the most indolent
and careless fashion. For the last two years, the stimulus of bettering
his condition had stirred so powerfully in his breast that he had
nothing else in his thoughts. As compared with the intensity of this
new passion, his old life seemed like an unsubstantial shadow. The
greatest changes in a woman's nature are wrought by love; in a man's,
by ambition.
Joygopal, when he returned after two years, found his wife not quite
the same as of old. To her life his infant brother-in-law had added a
new breadth. This part of her life was wholly unfamiliar to him--here
he had no communion with his wife. His wife tried hard to share her
love for the child with him, but it cannot be said that she succeeded.
Sasi would come with the child in her arms, and hold him before her
husband with a smiling face--Nilmani would clasp Sasi's neck, and hide
his face on her shoulder, and admit no obligation of kindred. Sasi
wished that her little brother might show Joygopal all the arts he had
learnt to capture a man's mind. But Joygopal was not very keen about
it. How could the child show any enthusiasm? Joygopal could not at all
understand what there was in the heavy-pated, grave-faced, dusky
child that so much love should be wasted on him.
Women quickly understand the ways of love. Sasi at once understood that
Joygopal did not care for Nilmani. Henceforth she used to screen her
brother with the greatest care--to keep him away from the unloving,
repelling look of her husband. Thus the child came to be the treasure
of her secret care, the object of her isolated love.
Joygopal was greatly annoyed when Nilmani cried; so Sasi would quickly
press the child to her breast, and with her whole heart and soul try
to soothe him. And when Nilmani's cry happened to disturb Joygopal's
sleep at night, and Joygopal with an expression of displeasure, and
in a tortured spirit, growled at the child, Sasi felt humbled and
fluttered like a guilty thing. Then she would take up the child in
her lap, retire to a distance, and in a voice of pleading love, with
such endearments as 'my gold, my treasure, my jewel,' lull him to
sleep.
Children will fall out for a hundred things. Formerly in such cases,
Sasi would punish her children, and side with her brother, for he was
motherless. Now the law changed with the judge. Nilmani had often to
bear heavy punishment without fault and without inquiry. This wrong
went like a dagger to Sasi's heart; so she would take her punished
brother into her room, and with sweets and toys, and by caressing and
kissing him, solace as much as she could his stricken heart.
Thus the more Sasi loved Nilmani, the more Joygopal was annoyed with
him. On the other hand, the more Joygopal showed his contempt for
Nilmani, the more would Sasi bathe the child with the nectar of her
love.
And when the fellow Joygopal behaved harshly to his wife, Sasi would
minister to him silently, meekly, and with loving-kindness. But
inwardly they hurt each other, moment by moment, about Nilmani.
The hidden clash of a silent conflict like this is far harder to bear
than an open quarrel.